1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate to a driver for a plasma display panel, and more particularly, to a driver for a plasma display panel in which the plasma display panel is scan driven by a switch driving control of a scan drive IC of a scan drive unit which receives an output power of a direct current to direct current conversion unit.
2. Description of the Related Art
Plasma display panels (PDPs) are flat panel display apparatuses that display images using discharge effects and are popular due to a large size screen, which is easily manufactured. PDPs can be classified into direct current (DC) PDPs and alternating current (AC) PDPs according to the discharge voltage type. The DC PDPs suffer from a long delay time for a discharge time. Therefore, much research is dedicated to PDPs driven by alternating current.
An example of the AC PDP is a three-electrode AC surface discharge type PDP that is driven by three electrodes and an alternating current. A conventional three-electrode AC surface discharge type PDP comprises multiple layers of plates, and thus, is thin and lightweight and can provide a larger screen size as compared to a conventional cathode ray tube (CRT). Therefore, the three-electrode AC surface discharge type PDP has a spatial advantage over the conventional CRT.
A three-electrode surface discharge type PDP as an example of a conventional PDP, a driver for the three-electrode surface discharge type PDP, and a method of operating the same have been disclosed in Kang et al., in U.S. Pat. No. 6,744,218, under the title of “Method of driving a plasma display panel in which the width of display sustain pulse varies.”
A PDP includes a plurality of display cells. Each of the display cells consists of three discharge cells (red, green, and blue colors), and a gray scale of an image is displayed by controlling the discharge states of the discharge cells.
In order to display a gray scale of an image of a PDP, a frame of the PDP can be expressed in 256 gray scales comprising eight subfields having different flash frequencies. That is, in order to display an image with 256 gray scales, a frame (16.67 ms) corresponding to 1/60 second is divided into eight subfields having different flash frequencies. In each of the subfields, a reset period, an address period, and a sustain discharge period are present to drive the PDP.
A driver of the PDP applies power to each of the electrodes of the PDP in each of the driving periods. In the address period, a scan signal is sequentially applied to the scan electrodes, and discharge cells are selected by applying data signals in response to the scan signals to the corresponding address electrodes of the discharge cells. The discharge cells are organized and appropriately selected for discharge to form and display a static or dynamic image.
For this purpose, the scan electrodes are biased to a scan high voltage in the address period, and a scan signal of a scan low voltage is sequentially applied to the scan electrodes. A circuit that allows the scan signal to be sequentially applied to the scan electrodes is necessary when the scan electrodes are biased to the scan high voltage in the address period. Circuits that provide such functionality are generally complex and use a bootstrap circuit.